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| I think they have an issue actually in that you need more than a grape-pickers' permit now to change the licence and thus they don't check as hard as to how long you've been in the country.
The best working excuse I've heard is to say to them that you never changed the licence because you did not have a car and now you're just about to get one.
Frankly, your ability does not diminish on day 366 of your time in Switzerland....  | |
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I got a 120CHF fine for not changing my license and the excuse that I didn't actually own a car in Switzerland didn't hold any water unfortunately. (I was driving a weekend rental at the time I got stopped by the overzealous AG traffic police).
That's why I ended up changing it after almost 2 years, as mentioned in a previous post. but I got lucky and the ZH StVA just swapped it. I had quite a run around though, as the AG police had given me a form to get stamped by the StVA upon getting my Swiss license but every time I asked the ZH StVA to stamp it, I got a different response from the various clueless Beameters.....
Upon handing in all my forms and my old license: "Sorry, we can't stamp it until the license has been approved and issued. Come back with the license."
Upon getting the new license and bringing it to the offices: "Sorry, you haven't paid for the license yet. Bring the bill (at home) to the post office and pay it then come back with the receipt of payment"
Upon paying the bill and bringing the receipt: "Sorry, this form is from the Aargau police. Nothing to do with us in Zuerich, we're not stamping it."
At this point, after three fruitless visits to the StVA offices I just photocopied the license and sent a cover letter to the Aargau police bureau explaining that I had swapped the license. Seemed to do the trick, unless of course I've become a wanted traffic violator in Aargau now.... (Oh yeah, total cost of misadventure almost 300CHF by the time the fine, admin costs and new license had been paid).
Gav